Chapter One







What do you do when your whole world comes tumbling down?
Some people break down, and some people deal.
I am the one who deals with it. I am the one who holds everyone together, who ignores my feelings and helps everyone else.
When my brother died my whole world came tumbling down. I swear, time stopped. My brother was the only person in my life who I could talk to. The only person who understood me. When the police came to our house that night, I had no idea that my brother would not be coming home. I was five. My parents opened the door on the forth knock. I heard the police talking quietly and snuck out of my room and down the hall so I would be able to hear them better. There were two cops. One man one woman, their faces filled with sorrow, their blue uniforms announcing that they would never lie. I remember them asking questions.
“Are you Rose and Gavin Starling, the parents of Aiden Starling?”
My parents replied, worry filling their faces, “Yes. Is there a problem? Did Aiden do something?”
The man opened his mouth and said, “Well, um, this isn’t going to be easy to say, but… Your son, Aiden, was in a terrible accident. There was a crash on 26th Ave. I’m sorry to inform you that…Your son didn’t survive the crash.”
My mother gasped and fell to the ground crying, saying “Not my Aiden, not my little boy.”
My father stood there shocked, saying “I don’t understand.”
I repeated the words of the officer over and over in my head. Car crash. Aiden hadn’t survived. As the realization came over me that my dearest friend had died, I started to cry soft silent tears. I stood and ran to my room trying to get away from the truth. I crawled into bed and pulled the comforter over my head.

When I woke up the previous night was just a blur. I figured it couldn’t have been real. Must have just been a dream. Aiden was fine, and when I walked into his room to wake him up he would be there, safe in his bed. I had climbed out of bed and walked down the hallway. Standing in front of his door, I had the slight feeling of fear. What if I hadn’t had been dreaming? What if Aiden was dead. I shook the thought out of my head and opened the door. I looked into his room and saw a lump in his bed. A smile came onto my face. Aiden was in bed asleep, perfectly unharmed. I walked over to the bed and yanked the covers off. Instead of finding my sleeping brother, I found his pillows fluffed up. I slumped to the floor in defeat and started to cry. I crawled into his bed, and fell asleep. The next time I awoke, the clock read 3:00pm. I had sat up in his bed, and started to climb out. I froze when I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. The footsteps stopped in front of Aiden’s door. I jumped out of bed and hid in Aiden’s closet. The door cracked open and I heard a deep sigh. I looked through the cracks in his closet door, and saw my red faced mother standing in the middle of his room staring at the walls. She turned her head around looking at everything in the room. She took a few steps forward and slumped onto his bed. A sob filled the room and my mother started to shake. I slowly cracked the door open and slid out. I had walked over to my mother and wrapped my little arms around her. She had held on to me tight, as if I were Aiden. But I wasn’t Aiden. Aiden was dead, and he was never coming back.